recognized as being very different from any form of P. 

 tenax, and desired it should bear my name. The locality in 

 which Hr. Gnnn found it was the Waitangi river, about 

 thirty or forty miles from its mouth, where it grew pendu- 

 lous from almost perpendicular rocks, in great abundance. 



In size and habit the present species res 

 lensoiisx more than /'. U no. i , but is more different from both 

 of these than they are from one another. Indeed the 

 varieties of these latter plants are so puzzling that it is an 

 open question whether they may not be found to pass into 

 one another, or so to intercross that specimens are to be 

 found of which it is difficult to say to which they should 

 be referred. Captain Cook, the discoverer of the genus 

 in 1770 speaks of two kinds, a yellow-flowered and red- 

 flowered, a character which in a general way distinguishes 

 tenax from Colensoi, and he figures one from Dusky Hay 

 ("Voyage to the South Pole, 1772 -1775," vol. i. t. 23) as 

 the Hax plant of New Zealand, which closely resembles 

 P. Hookeri. Colenso, in the " Transactions of the 

 New Zealand Institute," vol. i. (1868), p. 15, also re- 

 cognizes two species (tenax and Colensoi) as growing 

 throughout the Northern Island, at all elevations from the 

 sea coast to an elevation of 4000 feet, and in all soils and 

 situations; he, however, says elsewhere, that both vary 

 in the colour of the flowers, yellow green and red, and 

 both in the length, breadth, and amount of twisting of the 

 capsules, and in the thickness of their valves; to which I 

 may add that the seeds of both these kinds and of V. Hookeri 

 are identical in size, form, colour and structure. Seeds of 

 P. Hookeri were seut to the Royal Gardens by Dr. Lombe 

 in 1881, and the plants raised therefrom flourish in the 

 Temperate House, but have not flowered 



I have given on the plate with P. Hookeri a figure of the 

 flower of Dr. Lombe's " Swamp flax ; " it differs con- 

 siderably from that of P. tenax figured at Plate 3199 of this 

 work, and I shall hope on a future occasion to publish it 

 for the Magazine. 



P. Hookeri flowers in July at Torquay, the scape with 

 inflorescence attaining the height of five feet. — J. D. H. 



m Jig- 1, Reduced figure of the whole plant; 2, leaf, and 3, portion of 

 in florescence, both of the natural size; 4, flower cut vertically; 5, anther; 

 V, ovary ; 7, transverse section of ditto :—jias. 4-7 all enlarged. 



